06 January 2008:
So as things stand right now I am scheduled to go up to Saratoga Springs, New York on Tuesday, January 8th and return Monday, January 21. In addition, I'll be heading up there again the first week of February for more testing. I expect it to be lots of fun but ridiculously cold. I'll have my laptop with me and I'll be staying at a hotel with internet access so you'll be able to find me on AIM. However, I'm not entirely sure what kind of schedule I'll be on when I'm up there. I could very well be working 2300 (11:00 PM) to 1000 (10:00 AM) so my availability may be somewhat limited. If I don't pick up my cell phone in the middle of the day I may be asleep. Of course, the date of this trip has bounced around three times now in the past month so it is entirely possible that it could be pushed off yet again. Hopefully, I'll have time to explore the lovely little city while I'm up there and take some nice pictures but the majority of my time will probably be spent on operations. Oh, well.I uploaded a new Digimon Season 5 torrent today. I was going to wait until episode 15 was out before uploading a new directory torrent but apparantly Jetix has decided to recycle the Season 5 episodes after episode 13 so I figured I should upload this one now before I leave. Hopefully, my computer won't die while I'm gone. Another bummer is that the final GUNDAM SEED Destiny DVD is coming out the very day I'm leaving for Saratoga Springs. I don't remember if the hotel suites have DVD players but maybe if Amanda brings her laptop we can make it work. My fingers are crossed that Bandai will include Final Plus as Episode 50 but I doubt that they will. They'll either release it as its own seperate OVA DVD or I'll just have to wait until the final Special Edition is out to see it.I just finished burning the DVDs for House M.D. Season 2 for Erin and only have Season 1 left to finish.Thanks to my recent discovery of software called SubRipper I can now encode anime from DVD onto my computer including the English and Japanese audio tracks and English subtitles. The reason I'm doing this? I hate DVD discs. They scratch, they're expensive (more expensive than the same amount of data on an external hard drive), they don't always burn properly and they're a pain to archive. Thanks to HDMI I can just play anything off of my computer and watch it on my plasma TV without worrying about sitting through 1,001 opening logos (i.e. End of Evangelion), discs getting lost or scratched or DVD players hiccuping in the middle of the movie.I've also started watching the new Mobile Suit Gundam 00. It's a very cool series. Where SEED and Destiny focused on social/scientific/national-based armed conflict 00 focuses on economic/religious/national-based armed conflict and directly corelates to the energy crisis and religious conflicts we see today. I highly recommend it.12 January 2008:
I am finally in Saratoga Springs, NY and my computer at home is off to save electricity so I will not be seeding any of my torrents until I get home - probably sometime around 25 January. I'll write about my time up here when I have a moment but right now it's late and I have to get up early for work tomorrow. Some here's some stuff from Iraq.
"There is still a threat these Marines operate in. To me, that's just as courageous as the guys who were rolling through here (Fallujah), which many of these guys in this company did, in 2004. Every day these guys go out and there's a threat and they can't operate like there's a threat in regards to the way they treat the people and the interaction they have to do in the street. It takes a lot of courage for these guys to go out and do what they do knowing there is somebody out there that wants them dead."
--Capt. Stuart Glenn, commanding officer for Company I, 3rd Bn., 5th Marines
Agreed, Captain. I challenge any of the armchair soldiers in this country who criticize the conduct of our warriors to put their money where their mouths are.
Another letter from Iraq:
Greetings and Happy New Year to All from Al Asad,
It's been a bit over a week since I sent out anything substantive, so I thought after having some rain this morning (about a quarter inch), that I would send out a few pictures as well as an update on how things are going.
I awoke this morning (January 5th) to the sound of rain slowly falling on the metal roof of my "Can", which is a glorified eight foot by twenty-two foot shipping container that has modified to be a room with A/C and heat. At first I was unsure of the source of the sound, and had to turn off my heater to hear it over the circulating fan. It was a pleasant surprise to hear a solid rain shower, it has been almost eight months since any rain of this magnitude has fallen here, and is the first that I have seen since I arrived "boots on ground" the first of November. I have beenhere long enough that not having any precipitation has become expected and I was delighted by feel of rain drops as I walked to work this morning.
I have been keeping myself busy over the holidays, we did get a half day off for Christmas, but New Years was full work day like any other. I did not do anything special on New Years Eve, the base sponsored a 5K fun run over the transition of the two years, but I was not interested in running in the dark.... However the New Year did mark the promotion dates for several of the Marines here, and we held their ceremonies and the a celebratory cookout later that afternoon.
Since I wrote you last I have been out twice on Mounted Combat Patrols (MCP's) conducting security in the open desert here around Al Asad. Nothing will give you a better perspective on how vast this region really is, than spending eight hours out fighting the terrain. I have attached a couple of pictures that show a glimpse of the local area, it is very rocky and is covered by areas of flat open desert, as well as low mesas that dot the landscape. The most recent MCP I went on was a evening night patrol, and the sun was just setting as we departed and I tried to capture how absolutely amazing the sunsets can be here.
We had the opportunity to shut off the vehicles and dismount twice for over an hour each for ease in listening. Being so far from anything resembling a major city, and the lack of back lighting here, we were able to see every star in the sky. You never appreciate how the Milky Way actually looks until you either see it from far out to sea, or in the middle of nowhere like here. With the lack of humidity (sub 10%) the stars do not twinkle nearly as much as you get accustomed to seeing back home, Mars was a brilliant red and easily distinguishable against the star filled sky. I wish I had a better camera than I do, to try and capture some of these lower light level times, but you make do with what you have.
Following the Patrol, the Marines dropped me off, and headed back to clean the vehicles and weapons, and prepare for the next days mission. I absolutely feel privileged to serve with these young men and women, and am in awe of how they do it day after day, gearing up and heading out into the unknown. In my vehicle the other night the turret gunner asked what I thought about "having a cook for a gunner", and I quipped back no different than having a Submariner for your EWO, she thought for a moment and then chuckled. Seems that we all end up here from different backgrounds, and are most likely not doing the job we were initially trained up for, yet we are all here supporting the same mission, and I have yet to hear anyone
complain about the long hours, multiple tours here, dust (ok they complain about the dust), or the mission itself, kind of keeps it in the proper perspective....
Anyways, I need to get going for the day here, enjoy the pictures, and I look forward to hearing back from all of you..
Eric
